It is often desirable to offer actual samples of a product, or various promotional articles, as part of advertisements incorporated into printed publications. In particular, it is desirable to provide product packaging that can be inserted into newspapers with standard automatic insertion machinery. It is also desirable that this packaging protect the product sample from being crushed when the newspapers are stacked on palettes. It is furthermore desirable that the packaging not create "footballing", or bulging, of the stacked newspapers. Such footballing causes the newspaper stack to be unstable and unduly concentrates the weight of the stacked papers on the inserted product samples.
Packaging according to the prior art is generally in the form of relatively thin pouches that are sealed along their edges. In one example, a relatively thin sealed pouch has a strip along one side suitable for binding between pages of a printed magazine.
Another example has a sheet member that wraps around a plurality of product sample packages to protect the product samples. The sheet member also has a strip along one side suitable for binding between pages of a printed magazine.
Although the two examples described above are suitable for binding in a printed magazine, they are not suitable for inserts for newspaper publications. This is because the automatic insertion machinery requires that the insert be substantially planar over its major surfaces, that it have a relatively blunt and rigid leading edge for insertion into the feed rolls for the insertion machinery, and that it have flexibility to bend around the surface of the feed rolls until feed into the feed bin of the insertion machinery.
Neither of the examples described above have leading edges suitable for automatic insertion purposes. Furthermore, they have no protection against crushing of the product samples that they package.
Still another example has a pouch that contains a rigid member to prevent the pouch contents from being excessively compressed by the stacking process. However, this example lacks the blunt, relatively rigid edge required for the automatic insertion machinery and the rigid member contained therein can interfere with the degree of flatness and flexibility required to properly pass through the feed rolls of the automatic insertion machinery.